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Ben? Her?
Ben? Her? is the 23rd & 24th episode and finale of the second season, and 45th & 46th episode overall. Will's perfect life and Grace's unhappy life seemingly turn upside down in a series of events. Synopsis The Five Pillars of Happiness Will feels satisfied that his "five pillars of happiness", namely health, family, career, love life, and friendships are all fulfilled. Grace, however, is discontented in all pillars, including her offhand relationship with Josh. To help Grace patch things up with his boss Ben, whom Grace has had legal troubles with in the past, Will invites him over for dinner at their apartment. At first tense and scornful, Grace and Ben are able to see a more vulnerable and sincere side of each other. The next day, Will finds out that Grace has slept with Ben. Just as Will is coming to terms with his best friend and boss starting a relationship, he finds out that Ben is seeing another woman, aside from Grace. When he confronts Ben about it, Will is appalled by Ben's indifference and impulsively quits his job. Will tries to break Ben's indiscretion to Grace but he soon finds out that she, too, is dating someone else aside from Ben. After the guy he has been seeing breaks up with him, Will feels that his pillars of happiness have all regressed and he suffers an emotional crisis. Without saying goodbye to Grace, he leaves to spend time with himself at the Caribbean. This freedom is short-lived, however when Ben follows him to ask for help with clients, which turns out to be Karen and Stanley Walker. Jack and Rosario's anniversary On the first anniversary of their wedding, Jack finds out about Rosario's affair with the gardener. Though theirs is sham marriage for Rosario to get her green card, Jack is furious, unconcerned of the fact that he is also seeing another man, Fernando, so he goes to Will to ask for legal assistance on how to take the matter to court. Jack presents his ridiculous list of demands to Karen, including $500,000, a pony, and a Corvette, who immediately rejects it. Jack and Rosario subsequently gets divorced and he gets thrown out of the Walker Mansion so he moves in with Will, who is having emotional problems of his own. Cast Main * Eric McCormack (Will Truman) * Debra Messing (Grace Adler) * Sean Hayes (Jack McFarland) * Megan Mullally (Karen Walker) Guest * Gregory Hines (Ben Doucette) * Shelley Morrison (Rosario Salazar) * Corey Parker (Josh) * Marshall Manesh (Mr. Zamir) * Richard Gross (Frank) * Gorden Owens (Servant) * Michael Edward Thomas (Caribbean Houseboy) * Pablo Cartaya (Fernando) * Jo Marie Payton (Mrs. Freeman) Notes * Title is a reference to the film Ben-Hur (1959). * This episode was split into two episodes for syndication. Some scenes were edited or removed in the syndicated versions. * Grace reads that "Janet Eisenberg, 33, and David Bromberg, 35, are getting married." Janet Eisenberg is Max Mutchnick's real-life "Grace" and she and David had recently married. * Klaus von Puppy and Guapo appear in this episode. * Last episode where Shelley Morrison is credited as Guest. In the next season, she becomes part of the main cast. Cultural References * Jack sings the ABBA song Fernando to his date, also named Fernando. * When Will learns that Grace and Ben had started seeing each other, he grumbles "you are unbelievable". Grace then makes an impression of sex icon Mae West, saying, "you know you're the second guy to tell me that in the last 12 hours". * Ben and Grace dance to the song, "It Had to be You". * Will makes fun of Grace's skirt when he asks if she should be in the dashboard of a cab, implying that it looks like a grass skirt worn by hula girls usually seen in dashboard dolls. * When Jack reads his list of ridiculous demands to Karen, she refers to him as Blanche, after the similarly demanding Blanche DuBois in the play A Streetcar Named Desire. * Jack is referenced as reading Valley of the Dolls to Karen's children every night. The novel is about women who try to pursue their dreams but end up being dependent on amphetamines and barbiturates. * Karen refers to Jack as Miss Girly Brown, a play on the name of former editor-in-chief of Cosmo magazine, Helen Gurley Brown. * While refusing to give into Jack's demands, Karen says "You ain't gettin' eighty-eight cents from me, Rose", a line from the song Some People from the musical Gypsy. * Based on Grace's yachting outfit, he jokes that she "picked up a shift at Long John Silver's", a popular seafood fast-food restaurant. * Will recalls that Grace hated radio show host and family therapist Dr. Laura Schlessinger "before the rest of the world did". The radio personality was involved in a number of controversies during the late 90s. * Mrs. Freeman mentions that she would like to date with Denzel, referring to actor Denzel Washington. * When Jack moves in with Will, we hear the theme from the sitcom The Odd Couple, which similarly is about two roommates. * While preparing to go the opera, Grace jokes "it would be a shame if the only overture I got tonight was from Mahler", a euphemism for sex referencing composer Gustav Mahler. Will then mentions operatic soprano Beverly Sills "chortling into her cleavage". * Josh offer to teach Will prāṇāyāma, the calming breathing techniques usually used in meditation and yoga. * Grace describes the other woman Ben is dating as "the chick with the Macy Gray hair", referring to the afro hairdo sported by singer Macy Gray. * When Jack comes out of the bathroom with a towel on his head, Grace refers to him as "Erykah Badon't", referring singer Erykah Baduh who usually sported a turban. * Ben walks in on Will at the Caribbean wearing a white suit and Will jokes that "I didn't hear Tattoo announce you", a reference to the TV series Fantasy Island where the character Tattoo shouts "Ze plane! Ze plane!" to announce the arrival of guests in the island. * Ben tells Will, "I hope you like piña coladas. Me, I like getting caught in the rain," lines from the song Escape (The Piña Colada Song) (1979) by Rupert Holmes. Will then tells him "I don't care if you like making love at midnight, I'm not coming back," a reference to another line in the song. Media Gettyimages-141191081-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141192743-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141192732-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141192736-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191070-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191064-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191058-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191062-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191044-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191054-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191055-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191056-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191057-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191060-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191061-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191063-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191067-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191072-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191076-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191079-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191084-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141191085-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141192733-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141192734-612x612.jpg Gettyimages-141192735-612x612.jpg Quotes Category:Episodes Category:Finales Category:Two-part episodes Category:Season 2